Unless You Mean It Like That
by Jaztaz
Summary: Inspired from the song "You Shouldn't Kiss Me Like This". When Jimmy takes Cindy to the dance to make Betty jealous, Cindy ends up falling even deeper in love.
1. You Shouldn't Kiss Me Like This

Unless You Mean It Like That  
  
Disclaimer: I do not own Jimmy Neutron or any of its materials. And I do not own the song "You Shouldn't Kiss Me Like This" by Toby Keith, which I used for a title and the plot of this chapter.  
  
Chapter 1: You Shouldn't Kiss Me Like This  
  
They weren't the only ones on the dance floor, but they may as well have been. Almost every eye was on the couple that swayed slowly to the beat of the song that the DJ played off somewhere in the distance. The warm glow of dim lighting was making the perfect setting. This was the sort of night nine-year-old girls dreamt about when they fall in love with that tall, dark, and handsome special someone that they know they will someday marry. It was perfect, or as close to perfect as anything could ever be.  
  
"They're watching us now," the blue eyed boy with chocolate colored hair whispered down to his date; a blonde girl in an elegant pale pink evening gown. She snapped out of her slight daze and looked around. He had been right; everyone was indeed watching them, their eyes sure as they watched that the two were falling in love. A sad laugh almost escaped her lips. Unfortunately, she had already gone head-over-heals for this boy she was twirling with long ago. But he never knew that. To him this was just a game that they were both playing to win.  
  
God, if only he knew how wrong he was. Deep down, she hated this dance. It was so perfect that now she would never escape loving him. This night was engraved in her mind now, and she couldn't elude the feeling of need for him that had so haunted her from tender ages of childhood.  
  
"Hey Cind?"  
  
She looked up to meet those dazzling blue eyes with her own green ones. It was always painful to look into those vast oceans and know they would never be her's. No, those things of beauty would belong to someone else. A girl with brown hair and brown eyes who could amount to everything Cindy couldn't be. Still, despite her bruised heart, she smiled up at him.  
  
"Yeah Jim?" she answered. He returned her smile with his own famous one that melted Cindy's heart like a chocolate bar in August. Her skin tingled.  
  
"Well, thanks for this. Look at Betty, she's totally jealous," he said. Cindy's smile faltered slightly and she looked over to the other side of the room where Betty stood, absolutely fuming. Oh, he would have to mention her and shatter Cindy's perfect moment! Cindy looked back up at him and nodded, trying to force herself to look satisfied.  
  
"There's just one thing left to seal the deal," Jimmy continued, tilting his head slightly. "Then we'll be done."  
  
Cindy held her breath as his lips slowly descended down onto her own. Her heart raced wildly in her chest cavity. Everything she had always dreamed was about two centimeters away from reality. And then it happened. The kiss sent a shock wave through out her entire heart the moment she felt their lips touch. Her once wild heart skipped a beat and the world came to a screeching halt. For a while, she couldn't remember where she was. Now it was certain that she was totally his for all time. Whether he loved her or not, the electricity that had shot down her spine was enough to keep her totally devoted till the end of all time.  
  
He pulled away softly, smiling down at her shocked face. Then a smug grin played on his lips when he saw Betty Quinlan practically shaking with anger from the sidelines, too proud to stomp over their and pull Jimmy away. Jimmy, so wrapped up in the accomplishment of finally achieving Betty's affections, didn't notice the breathless Cindy Vortex staring up at him.  
  
Did he feel nothing? she wondered as she gazed upon his triumphant face. Tears started to glass over her eyes but she made an effort to stop them, as she had been doing for quite a while. His eyes gave him away and she knew it was true. He had felt nothing.  
  
"Y-you shouldn't have done that," she muttered numbly, pulling away from Jimmy. Her tone was teary and hurt, maybe even a little shocked. Nothing could have prepared her for this; no mater how many times she had rehearsed this night in her mind, she had never imagined herself having to push away from Jimmy. It had always been vice-versa in her dream world.  
  
"Huh?" Jimmy asked, turning his attention back to his date. Now that she had escaped his arms, he gave her a puzzled look. But his gaze switched from quizzical to concerned when he saw the tears misting over her emerald eyes. "Cindy, are you all right? What shouldn't I have done?"  
  
She shook her head and wrapped her arms around her self. The sound of a record scratching to halt echoed through the room as the DJ, who happened to be Sheen, stopped the music to watch the commotion that had ruptured. The entire attendance of the school dance, even the teachers, was rendered speechless. Those who had not been paying attention before were now locked on the two people in the middle of the gymnasium floor.  
  
"You shouldn't kiss me like this...unless you man it like that," Cindy choked, avoiding Jimmy's eyes that were trying so hard to connect with her green ones. Not able to stand it anymore, she turned and quickly walked towards the exit. The crowd around the double doors parted like the Red Sea for Moses as Cindy walked through. As she disappeared out into the warm June air, the stares once bestowed on her now rested on Jimmy, who had stood where she had left him, staring blindly after her. 


	2. Dancing's As Far As It Goes

Disclaimer: I don't own, so you don't sue.  
  
"Cindy!" Jimmy called, racing out into the crisp night air. The trees stirred slightly with the warm breeze, as though whispering to one another of his stupid actions. But in a way they were comforting. He looked up at the heavens to find no comfort. June stars laughed down at him, winking at one another as though they were keeping secrets from him.  
  
'Ha!' they seemed to mock. 'How stupid are you? How could you not have known?'  
  
Jimmy ran a frustrated hand through his dark hair; a nervous habit that he had formed when he felt like the world was dumping all its weight on his shoulders. He tended to do this most often when dealing with Cindy...or while he was sparring with his heart, which he did when he thought of the blonde that had clouded his mind and tied his tongue for years.  
  
How could he have not known? It was such a simple question that made him feel like a stupid idiot. He had seen her vulnerability from the very start when she'd carefully agreed to play this stupid game. How had he not noticed that look in her eyes?  
  
'No, you fool, how could you not notice that look in your own eyes?' a tired voice from the back of his mind spoke quietly, almost sadly. A voice that had been whispering to him for years since the very day he had met Cindy. Ashamed, Jimmy looked down at his feet as though he had been scolded harshly. It was like someone had switched a light on in a room he thought was bleak, revealing it was actually beautiful. And he had never noticed. He was stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid. If Cindy never looked him the eye again he wouldn't blame her.  
  
He heard a sniffle echo down the hall and turned. With long strides, he walked towards the sound to find himself by the lockers, cold and ugly navy lockers that had been in need for a fresh coat of paint for about fifty years. Leaning against them, teary eyed and bedraggled, was Cindy Vortex. Small thin rivers stained her cheeks from silently crying. She looked up at him like a wounded bird.  
  
Her eyes hit his for a moment before she furrowed her brow into a glare of disgust. In all their years of knowing each other, he had never received such a look of true loathing from her. But then, Cindy didn't pass that look onto just anyone.  
  
"Go away," she snarled fiercely at him, turning away from him. Jimmy felt like slamming his head against the metal doors of the lockers in anger. But he didn't blame her. He couldn't blame her. How do you accuse someone this innocent of being responsible for this? He was the one who had broken her heart. It wasn't her fault that she had let her guard down for once in her life and gotten crushed. Not to mention the fact that he had been the one who had crushed her.  
  
He shook that thought out of his head. It was too much to think about. It would be easier to have someone to make him cut out his own tongue then to face the fact, the cold and ruthless fact, that he had actually hurt Cindy. Denial was better. Easier. Simpler. But it just didn't work anymore. Truth was, he had broken Cindy's heart. Which broke his own heart...wait, what?  
  
"Cind..."  
  
"No," Cindy snapped, facing him defiantly. "Don't 'Cind' me! I'm sick of you toying with my emotions like I'm your puppet! Do me a favor and go find another doll to play because I'm not going to take it from you anymore!"  
  
"Stop acting stupid," Jimmy said out of habit. Instantly he felt like hitting himself upside the head. He hadn't meant to say that; it had just come out on impulse. Oh God, why couldn't he have had a smarter impulse?  
  
Cindy's eyes narrowed dangerously on him. Now he could understand fully why no one ever dared to cross this petite blonde who took on the appearance of harmless. Ha. Harmless. She was far from it. She was a hurricane wrapped up in a five-foot-three tall figure. A single half-hearted glare wiped out entire cities with one powerful blow and sent cocky high school football stars running for their lives.  
  
"Stupid? STUPID? I'm stupid am I?" she practically screamed. "I'm not the one trying to impress a girl with the intelligence level of a rubber duck! How dare you Jimmy Neutron? Calling me stupid when I've been working myself out of my mind to impress you with my straight As since I was nine!"  
  
Jimmy blinked, taken aback. He had never really stopped to look at the reason why Cindy had totally removed herself from partying and having fun in replacement with avid studying at the library with nothing but books for company. How ignorant had he been?  
  
"A little shocked? I'm not surprised," Cindy spat, her eyes beginning to mist over. "You never really noticed me. All you ever saw was this annoying neighbor girl who you hated..."  
  
She stopped and sniffed, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. All the while Jimmy stood a few feet from her, rendered utterly speechless at her rampage. His mouth hung open slightly as he watched Cindy fight back years worth of tears that she was drowning her own heart in.  
  
"I never hated you Cindy," he finally managed to whisper as she leaned her head against the lockers and slid down till she was sitting with her resting on her knees. A sigh of irritation escaped her lips. Jimmy cautiously sat down next to her, close enough to see the tears streaking down her cheeks.  
  
"Well you should have!" she half shouted, half sobbed with her head buried in her arms. "I was such a...such a..."  
  
"Snob?" Jimmy offered with a teasing smile in his voice. Cindy looked up menacingly with hurt in her emerald eyes.  
  
"Is this just some joke to you, Jimmy? Am I some sort of joke?" she asked seriously, more tears slipping from her eyelids and falling down her porcelain skin.  
  
"Why would I be sitting here if I thought you were a joke?" he replied, looking her directly in her eyes, in which tears were beginning to grow and slip away. Jimmy was heavily fighting the urge to reach up and gently brush them away. Cindy shook her head and sighed, looking away with unseeing eyes.  
  
"I guess not..."  
  
Jimmy watched her tuck the stray hairs that had come out of her complicated hairstyle and had fallen into her face behind her ear. With eyes red and puffy, cheeks stained with tears, and lips pursed in effort to prevent more tears, Jimmy had never seen a more beautiful girl.  
  
"What?" she demanded, her voice cracking, noticing his stares and the goofy grin spreading across his face that he saved only for her. Cindy laughed for no reason and rolled her eyes, returning the grin with her own dazzling smile that made Jimmy's stomach flip like a Russian acrobat. Forget Betty Quinlan, he had the girl he loved sitting right next to him.  
  
"You missed one," he whispered to her, tucking another wisp behind her ear. Cindy smiled a true smile again and leaned her head on his shoulder as Jimmy slid an arm around her waist.  
  
"What happened, Cind?" he asked, leaning his head on top of Cindy's, the scent of jasmine filling his senses. Unconsciously, he took her fingers in his hands and traced little patterns across her palms while she tried to figure out her answer.  
  
After a few moments she spoke, "I'm not sure. Sometimes I think you and I missed each other by just a few inches."  
  
Jimmy let out a small breath, knowing she was right. The past - everything behind them - would never allow them to be together. And as he buried his face in her blonde hair, Jimmy silently prayed for the hands of an angel to somehow intervene and change the course of reality for them. So that for once in life, hearts so intertwined could have the happy ending that existed only in fairy-tales.  
  
Neither spoke a word; outside there was the sound of people exiting the last dance of high school, which echoed down the empty hallways. But Cindy and Jimmy didn't part; they simply stayed sitting next to one another peacefully.  
  
Someday there would be a time when the broken path of empty promises and shattered hearts behind them would finally fade away and let them carry on. And someday that illusive happy ending that seemed to be saved only for knights and damsels in distress would finally find it's way into Jimmy and Cindy's eager hands. But tonight was not that night.  
  
Tonight they would walk home, each traveling down their own silent, scolding road of regret. And both would lie down in their own beds and release another "what if?" into the sky already full of the same exact question. And tonight would be the night that Jimmy Neutron and Cindy Vortex would once again miss each other by just a few inches.  
  
The End 


End file.
